Aren't people awesome?
I mean, not the dumb ones of course.
If you are a FB friend, you might have read my little ditty about what happened at masters today.
If you aren't a FB friend: nanner nanner doo doo
How cool is it to have people around, people that maybe you don't even see as friends.....just offer their support and encouragement.....and you know they are being genuine. You know it's not fake.
If you aren't familiar with masters swimming, it's a little hard to explain the feeling and how it works. Typically, you have a lane leader. That leader is usually the fastest person. Until my crash, that person was me. Since then, I'd been swimming in the back of the lane as I regain my swimming fitness.
Everyone can hit the intervals, but there is a certain level of pressure on the lead swimmer. 1.) because there's no drafting for that lead swimmer. 2.) You are setting the pace for everyone else.
And....you just don't want that person behind you to touch your toes.
It's one thing to hit an interval ONE TIME. It's quite another to lead a lane for 36 intervals of varying distances.
Today, I saw the intervals and thought, "Ok, I've got this. I'll hang in the back. I should be good there. If I need to slow down, I can slow down. Good. This will be good."
When out of the blue, C grabbed me and said, 'You're leading us today."
She continued to pull me to the front. And as I continued to argue my point, she pulled a Dr. Evil on me.
Then, she turned to look me square in the eye and said, "You've got this Tea. You can do this."
OH THE PRESSURE OF BEING THE LEAD SWIMMER. In the past, I loved it. Today, I was so paranoid of being the ONE to slow down the lane.
But you can't turn someone down when they say that to you. Or at least, I can't. She believed in me.
Maybe I could too.
I turned the the person 2nd in line and said, "Please give me 10 seconds. There's only 4 of us today."
She rolled her eyes at me but agreed.
The amazing thing is that I hit all the intervals, and I led for the entire session.
I'm still not back to my old paces yet, but that's ok because I'm not that far off now.
As I was leaving, I remembered a quote from an article that Coach posted in my log this past week: "Remember that the feel does not determine your performance… Regardless of the feel, your body has been prepared through systematic training and will give the desired result, but it might not feel great.”
When you've done the training & put in the time, your body is ready to takeover. You just have to let it do its job.
